I've seen many a blog posting describing the process of using CUPS to present a non-airprint printer to iOS devices. However, I've dug high and low trying to find if anyone has figured out how to print to a printer that has an Airprint server baked in.
In particular, I've got a Brother HL-2340DW that works spectacularly from iDevices. If I understand Airprint correctly, iOS does not need to know anything in particular to print to said printer. It more or less spits a PDF over IPP at the printer, and the printer does its thing. The only configuration options I get in iOS is whether I want two-sided printing (defaulting to long edge, or whatever the printer's default duplex option is), and the paper size (i.e. letter vs a4).
What I don't want to do is install the binary drivers from Brother (not that I could on OpenBSD) so that I can speak "BR-3" or whatever proprietary printer control language they use. While I understand that their drivers would give me more flexibility in terms of print options, realistically I'm going to use this printer's defaults. In that sense, the more limited Airprint capabilities are perfect.
Has anyone successfully gotten one of the various unix print systems (preferably CUPS) to send a print job to an Airprint printer? Since IPP Everywhere seems to still be a dream, it seems Airprint-enabled printers would be a decent enough target for basic printing support, no? Or is the Airprint protocol more proprietary / obfuscated than I'm led to believe?
Best Answer
On ubuntu: sudo apt-get install printer-driver-all
This will install all open-source filter wrappers and PPDs. I tested it with 3 printers, they can print after "Add Printer" without downloading any proprietary software.
I don't know for OpenBSD, but if you have CUPS running, try this for your Brother HL-2340DW:
Search for Brother-HL-2170W-hpijs-pcl5e.ppd
I also tried feeding a raw PDF to the driver (using CUPS-PDF.ppd), but it does not work for my AirPrint printer.